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Gert Town Pool at Stroelitz & Lowerline

I was going to head straight home after work today, but I decided to take a little ride first. I headed toward the bike lane on Carrollton. I took a left or two and ended up on Hamilton, that street where you take a left at the yellow house to get on the Earhart Expressway. Well, I am not going to ride my bicycle on the expressway, so I continued through the light for a ride around Hollygrove. I ride around this neighborhood so rarely that I can still feel like I’m lost–I love that feeling. Of course, this is a small town, so I wasn’t lost for long–I was just on Carrollton again. As I was heading home I saw this broken-down domed building on Stroelitz. I snapped this picture of it with its punched-out roof before going up to see what was inside. Turns out, this was a public pool before the storm, but it was destroyed and has yet to be razed or rebuilt. There’s a big reel of that swimming pool lane divider at one end, with ropes of it strewn haphazardly across the pool. There’s just a bit of water in it, probably from the last rain we had. The whole place is surrounded by small-weave chain link fence, but it still seems like it would be easy to get in there–and that’s just not safe. This is the Gert Town pool, property of NORD, and they still haven’t taken care of the place. In 2009 they were waiting for FEMA money since with 50% damage, the place qualified for a total rebuild–maybe they’re still waiting for that. What a shame–the pool looks like it was beautiful, and kids could sure use a safe place to swim in hot New Orleans summers. I wouldn’t have found this place except for the part where I like to ride my bike around, but people who live in this neighborhood or go to Xavier, which leased the land to the city and can’t get it back, they have to see this thing every single day.